An artist left disabled after battling a life-threatening brain tumour is using her gift to help others fighting cancer.
Sara Whitehead, 23, of Handforth, has defied the odds – and nine gruelling operations – to emerge a strong young woman with a passion for painting.
Her work is to go on sale at a show to raise money for The Christie, East Cheshire Hospice and support group Time Out.
The Whitehead family’s nightmare began when Sara was just nine. She said: “I began to fall over a lot, suffered sickness and felt tired and faint.
“We went to the doctors but it took a long time to find out what was wrong. I felt like nobody was listening to me.”
When diagnosed, Sara underwent chemotherapy, radiotherapy and many operations – including one which nearly killed her and left her unable to talk, eat or remember the faces of family members.
Her mum Yasmina gave up her teaching job to take care of Sara.
She said: “Her main operation to remove the tumour was drastic and nearly killed her. There was nerve damage. For two years she was on a monitor and had a tube to feed her. I would sleep by her bed every night. After that she was in a wheelchair. It was a very difficult time which I find hard to think and talk about.”
Sara had shown an interest in art before her illness but as she had physiotherapy and rehabilitation treatment at The Christie her grandmother Rose, an artist, started to teach her how to draw.
She enrolled on a course at Macclesfield College, where tutors spotted her talent.
“There was an exhibition and someone bought one of my paintings for £70. They said there was something different about my work that you couldn’t get in the shops.”
At a later auction for Time Out, one of her paintings sold for £110.
Sara still needs care, has hearing difficulties, memory problems and epileptic fits.
Yasmina said: “She does have problems but she is so determined to fight them. And that’s what makes her so special. That and her real desire to help others. She always had that in her as a child, that’s never gone away.”
Sara volunteers helping residents at Oak Mere care home in Handforth, at the British Heart Foundation and Crossroads.
“I find it easier talking to older people because they listen to me. My memory problems mean it’s difficult with people of my own age.”
Those difficulties led to a time when she was bullied in her early teens, but life improved when she moved to Wilmslow High.
“Everyone there was absolutely brilliant and the teachers were so supportive,” added Yasmina.
Sara attends Time Out, a group for disabled people which holds trips, classes and support groups at Wilmslow Leisure Centre.
Sara, whose dad Pete is a pharmaceutical manager, also has a sister Louisa, 20, a student at Nottingham University.
Sara said: “I know there are people less fortunate than me and I want to use the art that I love to help them.”
The exhibition, Look Forwards Not Backwards, starts on February 11, 11am at Cafe Waterside, Clarence Mill, Canalside, Bollington, for a month.
